YPF hires Excelerate’s LNG carrier to deliver Tango FLNG volumes

Argentina’s YPF reached an agreement with the FSRU specialist Excelerate Energy for the charter of a liquefied natural gas (LNG) carrier, to ferry Tango FLNG cargoes from Bahía Blanca, to the global natural gas market.

Both parties will be executing the final agreement in the coming days, with the objective of starting operations the first week of September, YPF said in a statement.

“We continue progressing in our ambition to add value to Argentine natural gas and to export surpluses during those months of low local consumption, to fully extract the potential as producer and exporter of Argentine natural gas,” said Marcos Browne, executive vice president of gas and energy of YPF.

The natural gas, produced mainly from Vaca Muerta, will be processed by the Tango FLNG unit at the port in Bahía Blanca, and from there, it will be transported by the LNG carrier Excalibur, which has a storage capacity of 138,000 cubic meters.

The loading of YPF’s product to the LNG carrier will be carried out through an operation that will last approximately 45 days.

The ship provided by Excelerate will be in the service to YPF until May 2020. It will be one of two ships that YPF will utilize to transport Argentine LNG to the global market.

YPF commissioned its first cargo in May becoming the first Argentine company to export LNG in its history.